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Norton Gets Secretary Chao to Commit to Awarding TIGER Grants This Week and INFRA Grants in June

Mar 7, 2018

Press Release

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), ranking member of the Highways and Transit Subcommittee and member of the “Big Four” transportation leaders who wrote the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, yesterday at a committee hearing got U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao to commit to timelines for awarding very delayed transportation grant funding. Chao said Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) funds would be announced later this week, and Infrastructure for Rebuilding America (INFRA) funds would be announced by June. Norton blasted the Trump administration’s delay in awarding nearly $2 billion included in the two highly competitive grant programs while worthy state and local projects wait to break ground.

The TIGER grant program provides funds for critical road, rail, transit and port projects. In the District of Columbia, for example, a TIGER grant was used to connect the D.C. and Maryland portions of the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail, a 70-mile bicycle and pedestrian trail network. INFRA similarly provides dedicated funding for projects that address highways and bridges.

“The Trump administration continues to make states and localities across the country wait for desperately-needed federal transportation funds that have been appropriated by Congress,” Norton said. “When we wrote the FAST Act, we streamlined the grant process to get funds to the states and localities as quickly as possible. While I am pleased my questions yielded some answers from Secretary Chao on specific timelines, this administration must do better if they want their budget to include more grant program funding going forward.”